⚾️ Electric infielder Elly De La Cruz is the most unusual switch-hitter in baseball
My Week in Sport(s) ⚾️ 🏉 🏏 ⚽️ 🎾
Welcome to My Week in Sport(s) — a regular newsletter from Plot the Ball.
Covered in this edition: ⚾️ Elly De La Cruz, 🏉 the Black Ferns Sevens, 🏏 Annabel Sutherland, ⚽️ Dean Huijsen and 🎾 Carlos Alcaraz.
⚾️ Electric infielder Elly De La Cruz is the most unusual switch-hitter in baseball
Elly De La Cruz wasn’t the focus of a newsletter I wrote about base-stealing in Major League Baseball last September, but I couldn’t miss an opportunity to mention him in passing. The 6ft 5in shortstop is just that electric an athlete to watch.
It was only a matter of time before I devoted more space to him. On the field, De La Cruz stands out immediately because he does the simplest of things in such an impressive fashion: he hits the ball hard, runs the bases fast and throws with a rocket of an arm in the field. MLB’s unmatched data-collection process allows us to talk about these basic skills in specific terms: since entering the league in 2023, he has been at or near the top of Statcast’s ‘Arm Strength’ and ‘Sprint Speed’ leaderboards.
When De La Cruz is at the plate, we know the ball comes off his bat fast — and that he swings the bat faster than most of his peers, too. The Cincinnati Red is also one of baseball’s rare commodities: a switch-hitter. Given the general scarcity of natural left-handers, it’s not surprising that most switch-hitters swing the bat faster right-handed. But De La Cruz — while he throws with his right — is among the few who swing the bat faster left-handed. In fact, no other hitter favours their left as much as he does.
Since July 2023, his swings from the right have been 2.7 mph slower on average than those from the left. (MLB.com first highlighted this trend last May; he actually ended the 2024 season with a much larger gap than he recorded during 2023.) And this inability to swing as hard has clearly impacted De La Cruz’s hitting output so far in his career: while batting right-handed against left-handed pitchers, he has recorded an on-base plus slugging percentage (OPS) that is far below league-average.
He’s well above-average from the left side against right-handers, though; account for the fact that those situations make up the majority of at-bats, and De La Cruz had a positive overall impact at the plate last season. Add his excellent defensive skills at a premium position into the mix, and you have a player who’s already an MVP contender at just 23 — despite that clear weakness in his offensive game. If he can level up from the left side of the plate, you’ll be hearing even more about Elly De La Cruz in 2025.
🏉 New Zealand dominate the women’s rugby sevens circuit by dominating the ruck
While they didn’t medal at the Paris Olympics, Australia are challenging New Zealand’s dominance on the women’s rugby sevens circuit. They’ve won two of the last three world series titles, after the Black Ferns Sevens took six of the first eight.
Aggregate each team’s recent results against other top sides, though, and it’s still New Zealand who look like the much stronger outfit. Since the start of the 2023-24 SVNS series, they’ve won their matches against other Olympic medallists by an average of 14.8 points; Australia’s margin across the same fixtures is 8.9 points. New Zealand’s dominance of these games starts at the breakdown: they retain the ball at 93.7% of their own rucks — a rate two percentage points higher than any other side.
The raucous Hong Kong Sevens takes place this weekend, and New Zealand will be looking to extend their lead in the overall season standings. But they won’t be at full strength to close it out; five players will miss the final leg as they prepare for the 15-a-side World Cup in England later this year. With the hosts highly favoured, the Black Ferns can probably do with all the help they can get. On this evidence, though, the sevens team should be hopeful of continuing their success even down a few stars.
What else I learned last week
🏏 Annabel Sutherland has evolved into Australia’s primary all-rounder
New Zealand were outclassed by Australia in a WT20I series at home this week. While they won last year’s World Cup, this outcome wasn’t a surprise: the visitors beat them well in that tournament’s group stage, before a shock semi-final loss to South Africa.
Ellyse Perry’s transition into a specialist batter continued — she didn’t bowl a single ball in the series — but 23-year-old Annabel Sutherland stepped up again as Australia’s primary all-rounder. In the 26 T20Is she’s played since the start of the 2023-24 season, she’s bowled 80% of the available overs; in her first 19, that figure was 47%. This week, Sutherland bowled more than anyone else and conceded 6.3 runs per over — a much lower rate than her teammates, who allowed 7.8 on average.
⚽️ Bournemouth teenager Dean Huijsen is a dangerous vertical passer
Barcelona teenager Lamine Yamal scored one of his trademark goals for Spain earlier this week. Who provided the assist? Bournemouth’s 19-year-old centre back Dean Huijsen, who made his first international start against the country of his birth.
Huijsen found Yamal behind the Dutch defence with a delightful long ball, and he’s excelled at playing direct passes from the back in the Premier League. On average, his completed passes travel 8.1 yards towards the opponent’s goal; only seven defenders in England’s top division have recorded a higher mark this season. Even more impressive is the way that he’s adapted his game to Bournemouth’s approach: last year in Serie A, Huijsen’s average pass travelled just 6.1 yards towards goal.
🎾 Carlos Alcaraz should remember that he’s more than a power-hitter
Carlos Alcaraz continues to tread water — even with Jannik Sinner currently out of the picture. Per Tennis Abstract, he entered the Miami Open with an Elo rating not much higher than the level at which he’s finished the last three calendar years.
Alcaraz departed Miami early, too. That loss led analyst
to conclude that he “should be venturing further into what makes him unique, namely, his variation”. But just how different is Alcaraz from the prevailing “linear, powerful, and unimodal baseline style”? Earlier this year, Jeff Sackmann compared his approach — and its effectiveness — to his Italian rival’s: “[t]he Spaniard approaches the net half-again as often as Sinner does. He wins nearly three-quarters of points when he does so.”The next edition of My Week in Sport(s) will be published on Friday April 4th.
